


Wishes and Lies

by enthusio



Series: Coming of Age & Related Stories [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 14:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21375439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusio/pseuds/enthusio
Summary: Fleamont thought he understood Charlotte.  Charlotte thought she knew Fleamont.  They were both right, but they were also both wrong.(Mostly set pre-Coming of Age.  Almost certainly will not make sense if you've not read through the summer 1973 chapters of that.)
Relationships: Fleamont Potter/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Coming of Age & Related Stories [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1279283
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Wishes and Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't get this out of my head, but there's no real chance of it ever being able to be worked into the story proper. The warning and rating are out of an over-abundance of caution, nothing goes beyond an oblique mention. Also, I couldn't begin to think of how to summarise or tag this so I'm open to suggestions if anyone has them.

When Charlotte was seven, she met Fleamont Potter. He was an odd boy, always wearing the strangest things and his accent wasn’t quite like anyone else’s, but he always made up the most wonderful stories. They’d play as dragon tamers and treasure hunters and curse breakers until it was nearly dark and Charlotte’s mum would call her in for dinner. Long after Charlotte learnt that the stories weren’t just stories, after she had done her best to escape the world she could never be a part of, she would still consider the hours of pretend some of her favourite memories. Even as a boy too young to be a real playmate under normal circumstances, Fleamont had been charming. 

When Charlotte was thirteen, she met Henry Potter. Her parents had only recently died and she was readying to be sent to an orphanage after no one in the village was able to find room for her. His Grace, as she would come to call him, had seemed a sort of guardian angel sent to rescue her. She would live in a castle and be given a governess and all she had to do was help ensure Fleamont grew into a proper husband. It was like Fleamont’s old stories, even after she better understood what helping him would mean.

When Charlotte was fifteen, she was madly in love with the magical boy who would tiptoe into her room at night just to spend more time with her. He would tell her of Hogwarts and magic and the entire secret world he and Linfred were a part of. Some nights he brought her magical games or sweets. Once he brought her a fluffy animal of some sort. It was a troublesome creature, but leaving it behind would be the second hardest thing she would ever do.

When Charlotte was sixteen, she began to understand her love would never be returned. She had thought Fleamont was only young, that at not quite fifteen he wasn’t yet old enough to consider anything beyond what they had. She had been willing to wait for him to mature. They were still children yet, no matter that he had begun puffing himself up when the village boys looked at her. She would never tell him of looking out her window one afternoon when he was supposed to be in school and seeing him kneeling beneath a tree, clasping hands with a girl who could only be a witch while his family looked on. 

When Charlotte was seventeen, she learnt what the people in the village would think of her if they knew the truth of her and Fleamont’s relationship. Margaret Howards was a pretty, clever girl who had been popular with everyone until she was sent away after being caught with a boy. Which boy, Charlotte couldn’t say. No one seemed to care as much about that.

When Charlotte was eighteen, she knew she had to leave Linfred. Fleamont was preparing to be married, she knew even if he had never mentioned the witch or why he had come home that summer with a necklace he had attempted to hide. He was still a sweet, charming boy. He would almost certainly make arrangements for her if she told him what she suspected. There would be a house and money and elves to help with the baby. There would also be a lifetime of watching him with the witch she could never be. A lifetime of being shunned in the village and tortured in the castle. She had begun making plans immediately.

When Charlotte was twenty, she sat in a cramped, darkened room while her daughter’s magic raged around them as she cried with hunger. It was the first time since she had run away that she wished to be back at Linfred. Back where there were plentiful meals and new clothes and elves who must know how to soothe a baby’s magic. Back with Fleamont, who she was starting to believe might have loved her. If not for the unknown witch and His Grace — who must have been the reason Fleamont hadn’t instead planned to marry her, it was the only explanation — she might have considered writing and asking for a way back. Instead, she begged milk from a neighbour and asked her to watch the baby and set off to do the one thing fleeing Linfred without so much as a letter from her governess had prepared her for. All the while cursing the local wizards and witches who had tried to magic her into giving up her child when she’d sought out the bank Fleamont had written her about.

When Charlotte was twenty-five, she realised she would soon have to find a way to explain to Lucy why she didn’t have a daddy at home like all the other children. The letters from Fleamont begging her to go back, even if only for a visit, were not an option. She had fought her way into a respectable position, one that took her as far from the magical centre of Toronto as possible, but she had also grown enough awareness of herself to know that it would only take one look to make her give it all up. If she could have been sure that Fleamont would give up the life he had created with the unknown witch as well, she might have been willing to take the risk. As it was, she spun a story about a brave sailor lost at sea while his wife awaited his return to share their happy news.

When Charlotte was twenty-eight, she considered going back for a second time. A letter she hadn’t been expecting, but perhaps should have, had arrived in the hands of a woman with a prim skirt and blouse and refusal to take ’no’ for an answer. Lucy would attend the local magical school with her mother’s approval, or Charlotte would be made to forget her existence. She had been given half a year to decide. The expected letter, carried by an owl and almost friendly compared to the stern witch who had come to her home, was kept in her pocket for most of that. In the end, it was only the fear of being rejected by Fleamont while their daughter was embraced that kept her from returning to Linfred.

When Charlotte was twenty-nine, she told her first lie about the truth of her and Fleamont’s relationship. There was no way around it, not when doing otherwise would require telling their daughter that she was the result of an accident between two teenagers who hadn’t the option of getting married. If Lucy hadn’t wondered why she had an account at the magical bank, Charlotte never would have said anything. But there was an account and the odd-looking man at the desk had been most insistent that it belonged to the daughter of Charlotte and Fleamont Potter, no matter what her surname was. Charlotte promised herself she would admit to the lie when Lucy was old enough to understand. In the meantime, she and Fleamont had been happily married and as in love as two people could be until His Grace interfered. It was close enough to the truth.

When Charlotte was thirty-four, she learnt what the magical parents of Lucy’s classmates thought of girls like she had once been. It was accidental, she had always made an effort to socialise only with the other muggle parents to avoid the still painful memories of Linfred and Fleamont, but somehow she had found herself in a group of witches. Their discussion of European magical customs was as enlightening as it was infuriating. She longed for the ability to tell them just how wrong they were, how desperately she still sometimes wished to go back to the life they found abhorrent without ever having lived it. If not for Lucy, she would have. Instead she realised she would never be able to tell her daughter the truth of how she came to be. Not when she was nearly an adult and had spent her entire life being told it was wrong. She wrote Fleamont that night, sending him a thick stack of photos and a detailed letter of Lucy’s accomplishments despite having written less than a month earlier. It was the only way she could come up with to ease her guilt.

When Charlotte was sixty, she found herself hesitantly asking Lucy if she mightn’t like taking a trip to meet her father. Fleamont still hadn’t any other children and Charlotte thought she might be ready to accept a place at Linfred alongside his wife, if he was willing to offer her one. There was also the matter of the twins. Fleamont had been thrilled to receive the news, Charlotte had known him long enough to tell even in the cautious, distant correspondence they kept up. She had also known him long enough to know there was something he wasn’t telling her. If there was one thing Charlotte had learnt during her time at Linfred, it was that Potters were uniquely protective of their families. Whatever it was Fleamont was concerned about, he wouldn’t say until the twins were safely behind the Linfred wards. Unfortunately, Lucy had no interest in her father or the European magical community in general. Charlotte cursed the pride and fear that had kept her from taking them both back nearly a lifetime earlier.

When Charlotte was seventy-two, His Grace died. She wrote Fleamont upon overhearing Andrew whispering about it with one of his few friends. Her feelings about His Grace were muddied, even after decades of trying to sort them out, but Fleamont had adored his father. Despite her best efforts, Charlotte still loved Fleamont. She sent her condolences, along with an update on the family and photos of the twins with their new wands. The polite questions about his wife and son were more stilted, but she forced herself to make an attempt. Fleamont would have doted on Lucy at least as much as he did James, she had known that from the moment she began to suspect she was carrying. That he hadn’t was entirely her own doing.

When Charlotte was seventy-five, she understood just how large a mistake she had made in trying to protect her daughter. She wrote Fleamont immediately upon Lucy’s arrival, explaining everything and promising to do her best to make things right. She would give Lucy time to calm down, certainly Fleamont would understand that it was best not to upset a Potter further when they were already angry, but once things had settled she would ensure their daughter and grandchildren knew how happy she had been with him. 

She asked what she might do to make them Potters once more, knowing that would be weighing on him more than anything. At least he had Andrew and Emily. They were her favourite grandchildren, though they reminded her so much of him she often found them difficult to be around. She was glad they had found the castle and their grandfather to their liking. It had long since become obvious they weren’t suited to the local magical community. As she signed and mailed the letter, she found herself hoping that one day soon they would all be back at Linfred where they belonged.

By the next summer, Charlotte knew her hopes would never be realised. Lucy was as stubborn as ever, curse Fleamont and his Potter traits, and Charlotte had never quite recovered from an illness in early winter. She wrote Fleamont for what she expected would be the last time, apologising again for the way things had turned out. She didn’t ask him to take care of their grandchildren, he would do that regardless. She didn’t express her regrets at ever having left, though it was a near thing. Her grandchildren would not exist if she hadn’t, not in the same way, and she knew Fleamont enough to know he would never change anything that would lose him his son.

Instead, she told him she loved him. That she was sorry for not being brave enough to say it back when it mattered. That she was writing a letter for Lucy to find amongst her things in the hopes that it might help even when she couldn’t. She had been a girl when she had run away, and a young mother when she had begun the lies that had led them all to this point. There hadn’t seemed to be other options. Lucy might understand that, having suffered the weight of other people’s expectations over the long years it had taken for her to begin her own family. It was the best she could offer with the strength she had left.

Fleamont would write back almost immediately. He would beg her to come back to Linfred, if only to see Andrew and Emily. There mightn’t be anything he could do, but he had the gold to try and their grandchildren deserved a chance to spend more time with their grandmother. Andrew would be of age soon, he had begun taking over some of the family responsibilities in the village. Charlotte would be proud of him, and of Emily, they had both taken to the village as easily as if they had been raised there. She should come home. There was no one who wouldn’t be excited to see her.

The letter would pass over the funeral. Would sail across the sky in the talons of the fastest owl in the Potter parliament, only to be returned back to Linfred when it was unable to be delivered. Fleamont would send eight more letters before accepting he had been too late. Would send one more to Lucy before summoning Andrew and Emily home from school, hoping that she might have simply forgotten to write in the grief of losing her mother. That letter would also be returned unopened, with a note that she never wished to be contacted by anyone at Linfred ever again.

Fleamont would hide the letter and note in the deepest corner of his personal vault, with wards to ensure it could only be accessed after Lucy’s death. He would show Andrew and Emily every letter from their grandmother, ensure they knew that she had loved them even if she had been too consumed by her memories to show it, but he would shield them from their mother’s intentional abandonment as best he could. It was another lie in the family, on top of the many small ones that had led to Charlotte running away and Lucy rejecting her family. Fleamont only hoped that this lie would one day help repair the rift rather than make it larger.


End file.
